Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-12-30
The Story Teller.

The Story Teller.
Warmly wss raconteur; story teller,
~ we say in England, or liar, as the
precisian would put it. He was as full
OF stories rs an egg is full of the spirit
OF meat, or Democratic delegate is
full of the spirit of the occasion the
night before convention. No man ever
encountered Warmly without receiving
samples of Yarnly's stock in trade, and
no man ever parted from him without
mentally promising himself that, vol
unfairly, he would never meet Yarnly
again.
Yarnly was pleasant fellow, q very
pleasant fellow. Idon't remember ever
to have seen him out of temper. And
yet it was fearful strain on ones
good nature to meet Warmly, and many
time L have gone miles out of my
way to escape him.
Ordinarily, however, Warmly wasn't
30 bad. He was bound to tell you q
story or two. That was matter of
course, and one always braced himself
to pass through the ordeal as manfully
as possible. 1t was when somebody
had been so foolish as to venture upon
telling of story in Yarnly's presence
that Yarnlyl came out strong. Hardly
had the misguided person finished
his tale ere Yarnly began to unload. It
was interesting, it was pathetic, to note
the gradations of despair which settled
upon the unfortunate man who had set
Warmly a-going. He would laugh good
naturally at Yarnlv's opening story ;the
next would evoke an idiotic, CHASTITY
smile; this would be followed, after
the infiiction of number three, by O
look Of painful WEAKNESS, and the VIC
tim would pass rapidly from despond-
ency to extreme vexation and utter
despair, his. face outrivaling in acute
anguish and undying hatred the visages
of the lost in Dante's inferno.
But, Warmly. nothing daunted, would
keep on, story following story in I'M
ending succession, stories supposed to
be new, and stories unmistakably old,
until the poor wretch, who has been
forced to listen, sought refuge from his
tormentor in cowardly flight.
1 hated this storytelling habit of
larnly's, hated it with all the venom
that was in me; and yet pitied him.
pitied him because of his inability to
enjoy another's relations. Let the story
be ever SO entertaining; no matter if it
were fresh from the mint of the rela-
tors vivid Imagination, Warmly would
show no interest in it whatever. He
would listen, to be sure, but only to
hear the pause which warned him that
his own opportunity had come, for
Warmly could hear pause as we'll as
the Irishman of the authentic narra-
tive. 1t was all that Warmly could hear
or cared to hear when another was
speaking. But when the others voice
ceased, he opened his ears as he opened
his mouth; he was unwilling to lose q
syllable of one of his own stories. His
affection grew with repetition, and it was
q pleasure which made one almost for
get his own pain to witness the light
which irradiated Yarnly's features as
he delivered himself of one of his Oft
told tales.
And then Warmly was so easily re-
minded. Let the occasion be what it
would; utter in his presence the most
serious remark OF the most trivial COM
monplace, and instantly and inevitably
was he reminded of what he was pleased
to denominate "a good thing" and the
good thing" you had to take willy
pilly, and half dozen more "good
things" to keep it company.
It got so in time that could readily
pick out Yarnly's victims from the
crowd of passers-by in the street, OF in
gathering of the people. When 1
saw man with a woe-begone express
sion in his face, and Generalization
figured in his form and expressed in his
gait, and especially when I saw one
with the buttonhole of his coat frayed
and distended, then did know him for
Warmly sufferer.
When Warmly died, so I am told.
friend was telling him a little story.
As usual Yarnly was eagerly awaiting
its conclusion, in order to take up the
ball and reel off few of his own tales;
but just as his friend ceased to speak,
Yarnly ceased to breathe. 1t was prob
ably the most dreadful death that ever
befell mankind.
If Yarnly's spirit has winged it's
flight to the realms of the blest, he can
never be happy there if the memory
of his disappointment in his dying hour
still haunts him, and if he has gone in
another direction, nothing that he shall
there experience can possibly compare
in bitterness to the pang which the
memory of that lost opportunity must
forever keep fresh in his perturbed
mind. -Tra71script.
COmicalities in Plants.
There is Jack-in-the Pulpit, the flow
ers Of the plant known as the Indian
turnip (Aris;ema triphyllum;) who
could never look at one OF these singu-